Key points
- In 2021, the day my company was registered fell exactly on my 28th birthday.
- A child who grew up facing discrimination could now pay taxes to the country he was born in. At my first financial closing, I was in tears.
- The name “WAVE” means letting the current carry me. I chose giving back to society over efficiency.
Updated
September 30, 2021. On my 28th birthday, I had a company of my own. As things naturally unfolded, the registration date fell on my birthday. Accepting this as fate, I began the next year as the head of WAVE Inc.
That night, we held a small birthday party at the bar my mother runs. I handed my parents the business cards I had made for that day.
“Thank you for believing in me and raising me all this time.
I'm going to be okay now, so don't worry.”
Being able to pay taxes to this country
In elementary school, when I went to the liquor store to buy on credit, they would say, “Oh, here comes the usual Filipina's kid.”
In junior high, people on the train looked at me with prejudice.
In high school, sitting in an exam hall, I heard someone say pointedly, “Guys like that are the ones who commit crimes someday.”
Working the register at the supermarket, people avoided me: “Ugh, a foreigner, let's use another register.”
And now I had my own company and could properly pay taxes to Japan, the country I was born in. When I finished the first year's closing, that fact brought me to tears.
The father who raised us took in my brothers and me, who were on the verge of being sent away, saying, “These children have done nothing wrong.” My late grandfather desperately gathered a mind-boggling amount of paperwork to prove our births. Thanks to them, I am here today.
This life is not something to take for granted. I want to use it well.
That thought always moves me forward.
“Letting the current carry me,” in the company's name
What I put into the name “WAVE” is the idea of letting the current carry me. Not strengthening myself from the outside, but going inward and entrusting myself to the natural flow.
Having dreams and goals is wonderful. But life goes on after a dream comes true. The goal after the goal, and the one after that. Working hard, piling up effort, catching up, overtaking, and being swallowed up. Even if you try to create your own current and ride it, it is hard to go against the source.
In the time of a life I once nearly lost, there is the self I have been given, the people I have been given, the opportunities I have been given. Food that tastes good, people I love, a beautiful sunset. I want to savor each day that will never come again. To trust, to gently embrace, to spread like a wave. That is the wish I put into this name.
My first year as a business owner was full of things going wrong
Honestly, my first year as a business owner was full of things going wrong. A perfectionist, an overthinker, someone who moves by feeling and intuition. I knew better than anyone that I was not cut out to run a business.
But those are just traits, not an excuse for not doing what it takes to make a dream come true. The next ten years would be ten years of sharing with a team the dream I had been dreaming alone. I decided that.
Seeing me like that, many mentors and friends worried and gave me advice. “Work that depends on you personally is fine, but your capacity is limited. With a community or systems, you could earn much more efficiently.” If I had chosen that path, I probably would have had more money and more time.
I chose my starting point over efficiency
But somehow, it felt like straying from my real purpose. Looking back at the path I have walked, that choice was not right.
Why I started the company was simple: to take the gift I had polished through my birth, the people, the environment and the challenges I was given, turn it into something that works in society, and give back to the society that let me live.
Building a school, building a church, protecting someone: all of it takes money. Money is only a means to achieve those things. In the pandemic year, when what I paid my fellow creators passed 3 million yen, I thought: my soul does not rejoice in exploiting others. A child who was not exploited will not exploit others.
From inside to outside: connecting people and society
The ten years from 18 to 28 were ten years of searching: polishing the gift I had been given, understanding myself, finding where I should go. The next ten years would turn from inside me to the outside, connecting people with society and people with the world. Little by little, I began steering toward social creative.
When I report back from the field, almost everyone says, “Isn't there something I could do too?” But they do not know where to direct that feeling. Then I want us to take on the job of bringing what is happening in the world into sharper focus. I want to create media that connects people.
These days, whether I look at Instagram, X or YouTube, I feel so much pain. There is probably no one who has not been hurt. That is exactly why I believe in the wordless power that film, music and creativity have, beyond language. Not zero or one, not black or white, but the power to move people's hearts just as they feel.
I had nothing, and I have been blessed with wonderful people and given wonderful opportunities. I am grateful from the bottom of my heart to each person who always supports me.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and don't lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”— Proverbs 3:5–6 (World English Bible)
Narita Jun
Filmmaker and video journalist, born in Nagoya in 1993. As staff of Peace Winds Japan, he works in disaster response and humanitarian aid while making documentaries. Green Film Festival 2024 Grand Prize. His upbringing and work were featured in the NHK national feature “I Was Only Born.”